Friday, October 14, 2005

Well.. this story has a simple beginning and a very relieving End (for me altleast)

since im not tht far away from the gr8 city of Bangalore, i too was "handpicked" for an exciting career in a BPO few months back. but this was diffrerent as per the employment agency and they representatives from recruiting company. Why? coz this was a IN HOUSE unit of a international prestigious financial outfit. the opporutnity did sound good tht time and i just hopped to it.

A month after finishing my graduation i was in the city of Outsourcing, living a complementary 2 week luxurious life in a fully furnished Penthouse owned by the company and life was GOOD. i really beleived tht i have got the best deal over my class mates now working in various organisations for almost half my salary or the ones persuing higher education....So was the begining, and next few weeks were pretty euphoric for me and the bunch of newly joined group of guys from various cities. i was on top from the beginning, active team leader, volunteering for everything and maintaining a gr8 professional realtionship, determined to prove tht i belong here. after a month and half i was finally trained in ligustics for US accent, and trained for the process ill be working for.

And then it started hitting me. the charm of the new hi-tec workplace was gone and i saw a different world all together. people were nice and the work was good, but for my guts kept telling me none of this was real. even though it was a very enjoyable scene while we worked, some thing kept warning me that it was too good to be true. and then the real picture came out of the blinds. people were nice because they were expected to be nice or rather paid to be nice coz it kept the employee morale up. no one really cared. a colleauge of mine who s been here long enough to know the real picture behind the smiles and hi - tech walls was trying to leave the job from ages, only he coulnt, not any more. he was destined to be in this industry for rest of his life. knowing what he s really gotten himself into, a corporate quicksand. no escape what so ever and if he does get out he ll have to work for another BPO coz this particular industry doesnt give u many career options.

i started asking myself, if i stay in this job what will i have to show for after ten yrs? nothing!! i had seen people of different age, sex, background & education doing the same job as i was. few more weeks passed and one day while returning from office one morning (yep, i was in the night shift from the beginning) i knew i cannot go back there anymore. i couldnt stand another day of making calls to States.

i packed my stuff, called a few of my frineds and bid them farewell and headed back home. and while the train left the glittering city behind me, i could here someone singing "you can check out any time u like... but u never leave........ "

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Few days back i happend to contact an old friend of mine from school days. She had to leave town unexpectedly and we sort of lost touch after that. it was jus fate that we could ever speak again, after SIX an HALF yrs!!!

and the most beautiful part of the conversation was that in a few seconds both of us forgot that we have been out of touch for more than half a decade and over a thousand miles. she was still my best friend and it was still yet another chat over the phone as we used to do yrs back.....

some of us fail to see the beauty of it, some thing so simple yet so wonderful. all of us had had fair share of people around us, a lot of close friends. we all had to let go of someone over the time for reasons ranging from inevitable things like transfers to meaningless misunderstandings.

Most of us never get to say a real good bye coz the idea of being "FRIENDS FOREVER" is too tempting. but gradually we all loose contact and our closest friends jus become part of our memories as new people come to our lives. we hardly think about them once in a blue moon and wonder whatever happened to them.

i think it was Ford or someone who once said " if i have two best friends near my deathbed when i die, ill die as the richest man on earth" how many best friends have u lost through out your life?